Nick Paul speaks to the North Bay media for the first time since winning World Junior Gold with Team Canada on January 5th. PHOTO BY CHRIS DAWSON.
Nick Paul wasn’t wearing his gold medal, nor his Team Canada jersey.
But what he did bring was confidence knowing that he was truly a Canadian World Junior Gold Medalist.
Paul had been away from the Battalion camp for more than three weeks during his amazing World Junior experience in which Canada captured gold in a thrilling 5-4 win over the Russians in the tournament final on January 5th at the Air Canada Centre.
The win broke a 5 year gold medal drought for Team Canada.
“The Russians made it interesting there making it a really tight game, as soon as that buzzer went, words can’t explain, my whole body went lame, I got shivers and just started hugging all my teammates and threw my stuff in the air, I broke my helmet I threw it so high but it was just amazing, words can’t explain and lost my voice singing the national anthem at the end there,” said Paul who finished with 3 goals in the tournament.
Team Canada finished with a perfect 7-0 record and will be called one of the greatest Canadian World Junior Teams of all-time.
Paul believes a lot of that success came because the team understood what it had to do to win.
“Everyone was blocking shots, you saw Max Domi blocking shots there, and he’s a goal scorer so it just shows you everyone bought into their role they knew what they had to do and everyone skated hard, there’s no let up and I think that’s why we were successful,” he said.
“He (Coach Groulx) wanted me to be a good penalty killer and just use my big body and not trying to do anything too complicated, use my big body, put pucks to the net, get screens, not be too fancy. He gave me some freedom too, he told me to work hard and don’t try to do too much fancy stuff and he says he relies on me to get the job done so he’s a great coach, he knows what he’s doing and he knows how to get the most out of everyone.”
Small Hockey World
With players from 3 different leagues gathering for the Team Canada training camp, Paul would have never imagined he would be roomed with a player who had a connection to his family. Early in training camp he was roomed with Calgary native Brayden Point. After a few conversations, they realized they had a unique connection.
“We were actually roommates when we first got there for the training camp and we just started talking and I said I am from North Bay and he said he had some family around the area,” said Paul.
“I had some Aunt’s and Uncle’s come down from there and they were talking to his parents and apparently they know all about each other so small world, especially us being roommates, we actually got along really well, he’s a great guy and great player as well but it’s a small world how that happens.”
Short Break
Due to his busy Christmas schedule, Paul was given a few days off before the joined his Battalion teammates again on January 9th for the club’s U.S. road trip to Plymouth and Saginaw.
Now Paul’s focus will be to help the Battalion on its quest to win a Memorial Cup championship.
“I think with the team here, especially with the trades we have made, we added some really solid guys and good guys off the ice so I think we have a good team here and we are going to have really good chemistry and I think we have as good of a team as we had last year, maybe even better so I have high hopes for this team here and I think we are going to go a long way,” he said.
“I will try to share my experience here, but definitely don’t want to sound like a know-it-all, so I want to be comfortable with the guys just give a few tips here and there, especially the younger guys and make everyone feel comfortable because I felt the biggest thing when we were there is, everyone was comfortable, everyone relied on each other and that’s why we made it so far.”
The Battalion is expected to have a short pre-game ceremony to honour Nick Paul, prior to Thursday’s game against the Barrie Colts.
